AKC News // Engineers contribute €5.5 billion to economy

Engineers directly contribute €5.5 billion to the economy here and are very prominent in high-tech sectors that account for almost 80% of exports.

A report, launched to coincide with the start of Engineers Week 2009, reveals that engineers are well represented in the high tech industrial sectors - chemical, pharmaceutical, healthcare, electronics and ICT.

A total of 68,500 professional engineers worked on the island of Ireland in 2008 - 48,900 or 71% in Ireland and 19,600 or 29% in Northern Ireland.

Employment peaked in 2006, at the height of the economic boom when engineering professions made up 2.4% of the total work force on the island on Ireland.

'The fact that engineers are an integral part of sectors such as pharmaceutical, chemical, healthcare and ICT crystallises a key point Engineers Ireland has been making for a while - that without a steady supply of qualified and capable engineers, Ireland risks losing out in the very sectors that are the platform for our economic recovery and future prosperity as a knowledge economy,' commented John Power, Engineers Ireland's Director General.